Jon Batiste is going to take the stage in just a few hours to sing the national anthem at the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans. Despite being an Academy and Grammy Award-winning artist, some people might not be familiar with the singer, who works a lot behind-the-scenes.
The 38-year-old performing for this year's game makes a lot of since as he is a native of Metairie, LA, which is part of the New Orleans metropolitan area. Of course, the Super Bowl is taking place in New Orleans this year.
Batiste's family is considered a New Orleans musical dynasty that includes Lionel Batiste of the Treme Brass Band, Milton Batiste of the Olympia Brass Band, and Russell Batiste Jr. At only eight years old, he played percussion and drums with his family's band, the Batiste Brothers Band. At the age of 11, at his mother's suggestion, he switched to piano and took classical piano lessons from local teacher Shirley Herstein every Saturday for seven years.
He released his first album, Times in New Orleans, at 17. Batiste would go on to attend the Juilliard School in New York, a private school for performing arts. The singer later founded the group Stay Human, which became the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS.
In his career so far, Batiste has released six studio albums. His album We Are won Album of the Year and Best R&B Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards.He also co-composed the score for the Pixar animated movie Soul in 2020 alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The trio won an Academy Award (Best Original Score), a Grammy Award (Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media) and a Golden Globe (Best Original Score) for his work on the movie.
The Super Bowl is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET. Fans can expect the team introductions, national anthem and coin toss to all take place around that time.
The Grammy winner told Page Six recently that he is “always going to represent” his hometown of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, whenever he has the opportunity — including at the big game. In support of that, Batiste says he will “definitely” lean into his jazz roots when he takes the stage to sing the national anthem on Sunday.